Trackside at Barcelona: Ferrari's problems over?

On the final day of Barcelona F1 testing, Edd Straw ventured trackside to find out which cars have made the most progress in the handling stakes since Jerez. The movement of the Ferrari proved something of a surprise...

As testing progresses, inevitably the performance window of each car narrows dramatically. The engineers hone the setups and build their understanding of how the car is working, so the differences that separate each machine are reduced. On day eight of pre-season testing (for most of the teams at least), you're looking at a grid of cars approaching race readiness.

Take Felipe Massa's Ferrari as the example. The F2012 looked a better-balanced machine on Friday than it did earlier in the week in the hands of Fernando Alonso. Superficially, that's great news for the Prancing Horse and it's certainly evidence that the Brazilian was being honest when he hailed the improvement in the car. But all things are relative and when you look a little closer at how it behaves on track, the same concerning traits are there.